Chapter 6

It seemed untrue. It seemed perfectly unbelievable. For all the world I thought that I must be seeing things, imagining it, but the more I stared the more she knew for certain this was Julia. I'd looked at that face over breakfast for the first seventeen years of my life. There was no mistaking it. I thought fast, desperate not to lose her amongst the crowd, and pulled out the first question that came to mind.

"Is the music always shit in here?"

I cringed a little. It was a dumb thing to say. I actually quite liked the music, even if just for nostalgic reasons, bit it gave me an opener.

"Sometimes it's better," the man-who-would-be my-sister began, "Seventies night on Saturdays is good for a laugh."

That's when I noticed how differently Julia held herself in these clothes; how she had adjusted her voice. My heart almost froze in my chest, desperate to keep her talking while my brain began to wrap itself around the situation.

"Because I've not been around here long," I blabbered, "a couple of weeks I think…" I realised I'd already lost track of the time I'd spent in the world. It could have been anywhere from a fortnight to a month. "I don't know the area very well."

"There's a better club on Knight Street," Julia said as a young man walked towards us. I recognised him as the man I'd seen her arguing with the day before. I started to wonder if he was even a young man. Suddenly my mind had been thrown into chaos.

"Hey," he said.

Julia turned to him.

"Hey, sorry, I got held up," she said, "bumped into a newbie in town," she turned back to me. "I'm Julian, this is Mark."

Julian. I closed my eyes for a moment. Add one letter and her gender was flipped on its head. I felt a little bit weak inside.

"I'm Kim," I said quietly before I realised the fact of what I was saying.

"I've got a sister called Kim!"

That sentence almost broke my heart. Yes, I thought, you have. A sister you can't even tell about this. A sister whose sexuality you know as a fact because you've caught her with her hand down her pants in front of The X Files. But all I said was,

"How funny – what a coincidence."

I offered to buy them drinks, anything to keep them talking. We sat with beers a few moments later, trying to converse above the deafening dance music. My eyes focused on the familiar face, just trying to make sure. I knew that there was no doubt about it but I was having trouble believing it. It felt a though the music kept stopping and all the dancing ceased every now and then as I tried to take mental snapshots. By any other name, in any other guise, Julia or Julian was still my flesh and blood.

As Mark went to the toilet I broached a question.

"You said you had a sister?"

"Two actually. Both younger."

I have a nervous smile.

"What's your family like?" I asked.

"Not that close," I watched my sister say, feeling my heart break all over again.

"Why do you say that?"

Julia… Julian… played with the label on his bottle.

"We never really talk to each other. I've got parents who won't even acknowledge that my youngest sister owns a bra."

I looked down and bit my lip, trying not to smile. I remembered that whole 'you're not big enough yet' incident. I'd taken her sister shopping myself. She never stopped thanking me for that particular shopping trip.

"You said you had two sisters," I prompted a little hesitantly. I wasn't sure how much I was willing to hear about myself from the eyes of another.

"Yeah. Kim." I heard my name followed by a sad sigh. "It feels like there's something there. She's got a secret and she won't let anyone in."

I stared on. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I wasn't the only one with a secret, apparently.

"Maybe," I began, fighting for words, "maybe she doesn't want to burden anyone…" I hesitated, "when they have secrets of their own."

"Everyone has secrets."

I nodded slowly. Wasn't that the truth?

I saw Mark returning. My head was in a mess and I wasn't sure I could cope with much more. I stood up and gave a weak smile.

"I think I'd better go," I said, "music's giving me a headache." I hesitated as Mark sank into the seat beside the face that I never thought I'd see again, "maybe you should try talking to your sister sometime. Seventeen year olds have a lot more to offer than you realise."

I saw shocked eyes looking up at me.

"How did you know she's seventeen?"

I froze. It was too damn hard not to let things slip sometimes. Giving a tiny smile I shrugged.

"Did I forget to mention that I'm psychic?" I said quietly. With one last lingering look I turned and left the club.

There was a part of me that wanted to stick around and to talk all night but it was so fucking difficult to do; to look at my sister and see Julian, the side of her that she had never shared, and to know that she would never tell us the truth. I couldn't handle it, couldn't take it in at all. All those years my family had searched for Julia, not for Julian. Never even thinking for a moment that there could have been a real reason for disappearing. Were my family so bad? So terrible that Julia had fled rather than faced them? Was I that bad? My head was in such a muddle, I couldn't get my thoughts straight.

I went home… god, I was even calling that crappy place home by now. I curled up in bed but I didn't sleep a wink all night.

~xXx~

I had to get a piercing on my way to work the next morning. It was fast becoming my escape. This time my nose was my body part of choice. This was my favourite one yet. I loved the little jewel shining in my nose, even though I resembled Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer for another three days.

Hunt wasn't so taken with my changing appearance.

"Bloody hell," He declared when he saw me, "whoever makes the tea, you can use Stringer's face to strain it."

The insults were getting to me, I'll admit it. What right did he have to attack my appearance? I wasn't the only one he picked on either. Malcolm might have been a prat but he didn't deserve Hunt's comment about wearing a bar of Dairy Milk on his legs. OK, so those trousers went beyond 'mistake' territory but there's no need to insult a chocolate bar.

"Are you alright, Kim?"

I looked up in surprise to see who'd spoken I such a soft tone. DCI Drake was standing beside me. I wasn't used to anyone offering a friendly word and despite myself I gave a small but grateful smile

"Fine," I said.

She didn't look convinced.

"Heavy night last night?" she asked.

I wished. I'd barely managed one beer.

"Not really," I whispered, "family stuff."

A strange look came upon her face. I think that was when I realised that they knew – they knew something wasn't right, they knew that I didn't belong.

"I hope you manage to sort it out, Kim," she said. She put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a sympathetic smile, then disappeared into Hunt's office and drew the blinds.

They were definitely shagging.

I tapped my pen against the desk. Was that the reason I was here? To see my sister one last time? Or to stop her from leaving? Was there a way I could get her to talk to our parents and be honest with them? Or even to talk to me… the other me…about what she… he… was going through?

I rested my head in my hands and tried to think. Maybe there was a way. Maybe there was something that I could do. Maybe if I did, I could even get home.

Home. Real home. Not the place I was slowly starting to decompose in.

I heard the bleeping of a machine somewhere in the depths of my mind. Perhaps I was finally tracking down my exit.